SEO, it's where the money's at!

Nowadays, you can find anyone to build you a website. Working in the .COM business, I've had clients hire top marketing and web design firms thousands of dollars to young high school/college students in exchange for internship hours (I use to be one of them!).

In the early 2000's/late 90's, web designers could get away charging thousands of dollars per website. Unfortunately, web designers are as abundant as the number of houses for sale on the market (in this current economy). Secondly, flash intensive sites are now overshadowed by search engine ranking requirements. When it comes down to it, how much value is an extravagant (and expensive) flash site worth, if it' can't be found in search engines?

According to Google® or Yahoo® search engines, it isn't worth much - ranking wise. Nowadays, it's all about relevant content on the websites and interlinking with relevant content related websites. Google® has a certain formula (or what we nerds call algorithm) that determines how a website is ranked in searches. These are based on many factors that are listed on your website. Unfortunately, Google® changes these factors (reportedly) once a month. Therefore, someone ranked #1 this month may not be possibly be that ranking the next month.

Theoretically, it encourages webmasters to frequently update their website with current information. Secondly, it discourages website spammers from saturating the Internet with... well, crap.

Recently, I've been thinking about furthering my education in Web Design. Realistically, it is still necessary to have those fundamental skills to develop websites. I've even thought about getting a second undergraduate degree at the Art Institute of Phoenix, just so I can claim master to that specific trade. Not to say I'm not fairly expert and educated already (I've graduated the University of Arizona with a BA in Political Science (minors in Media Arts and Business) back in 2004).

However, I'm worried with the trend of web design being readily available to anyone by anyone. In this industry, if you can master the art and dynamic of web design, uniqueness and talent will play a part whether you can get a job or not. So I've decided I'll focus on the next opportunity out there: search engine optimization (SEO for short, is the act of optimizing a website on search engines).

In my research, SEO firms charge a tremendous amount to customers. It's a tedious task to be ranked appropriately. With Google® updating their algorithms often, it takes a lot of time, effort and adjustment for a website to be ranked appropriately.

As for me, I'm getting certified on WebCEO's SEO training program via online. (See the link below.) While I'm doing so, I will further my education and training on web design and development, whether it's self-teaching or getting that second undergraduate degree.

Until then, I want be where the demand (and money) is at: Search Engine Optimization (SEO).